City architect scores upset over 3 national rivals for $84 million project

February 26, 2004|By Blair Kamin, Tribune architecture critic.

John Ronan, a little-known 40-year-old Chicago architect, has beaten three nationally recognized firms in a design competition to get his first major commission, an $84 million project for a public high school in the New York City suburb of Perth Amboy, N.J.

Ronan topped three other finalists--architect Peter Eisenman of New York, Fox & Fowle of New York and Morphosis of Santa Monica, Calif.--for the right to design the 3,000-student high school. It will be built on a 15.5-acre site now occupied by a public housing complex. Completion is scheduled for 2006.

A jury that included architect Henry Cobb, educators and Perth Amboy's mayor announced its decision Tuesday night. Eisenman, who grew up in New Jersey, was runner-up.

"I wasn't expecting to win," Ronan said Wednesday. "I knew that I had a good chance, though, because the scheme was very good."

His plan calls for the high school to have five towers, each housing communal functions such as gyms, dining areas and media facilities. Each tower, he said, will have a distinct color and graphics.

"They are the visual markers on the skyline you can see from the city," Ronan said.

His previous largest commission was a privately funded, 70,000-square-foot youth center on Chicago's South Side. Ronan's firm is 5 1/2 years old.